How Production From The Gary Sanchez Signing Could Indicate A Future Willy Adames Trade

[Bashopolis]

Why did the Brewers sign another backup catcher? This signing fits with how the Brewers see the process of roster development.

Image courtesy of © Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

Player acquisition is about winning each plate appearance, not about filling positions.  
November through February is the initial asset development phase for the 2024 Brewers team. Over this period, the goal is to compile the assets necessary to maximize production through approximately 6,100 separate plate appearances by the Brewers and their opponents during the season. 

The Brewers, especially this offseason, are generally not looking at players from a starter-nonstarter perspective or even totally from a left-right platoon perspective; instead, they are looking at this from the perspective that each additional asset provides a greater likelihood of a positive outcome during each plate appearance by the offense or defense than if it wasn’t made.    

Adding Sanchez to take bats as the designated hitter means greater depth in the outfield, as those outfielders won’t consume DH plate appearances. The young outfielder producing positive outcomes less often will get fewer at-bats in this mix.  Each acquisition has ramifications at other positions.  In this case, the overall potential for positive outcomes will be improved at the DH and two outfield positions. 

An offseason is a sequence of related events.  
Each season should be addressed through a continual improvement strategy during which the team adds assets that improve the likelihood of positive outcomes during each plate appearance. 

Why did the Brewers sign Eric Haase, Jake Bauers, and then Rhys Hoskins and Gary Sanchez to play the same positions? It's because an offseason isn’t a single event like some fantasy baseball league draft day. It is a string of chronological events. When they signed Haase and Bauers, the Brewers didn’t know that they would be able to sign Hoskins and Sanchez later. Haase and Bauers were efficient signings to improve the roster at that moment. 

Could they have offered more at the moment and signed Hoskins and Sanchez? Maybe, but unlikely, both players probably wanted to see how their market played out. If the Brewers did want to sign them in December, it likely would have cost more than signing them later in the winter. That cost would have been more than the sunk cost in Haase and Bauers. And if the Brewers are lucky, they can slide Haase and Bauers through to provide depth waiting in the minors. 

Replacing the outcome of players who leave doesn’t have to come solely from that player's position on the field.  
There are a variety of ways to replace a loss of production. It could be from directly replacing that player or, more likely, it is through adjusting the mix of production on the whole team. 

The Brewers traded Corbin Burnes and realized they could not replace that output with a single player. Instead, they are leaning into a different pitching philosophy, focusing on using a variety of pitchers to cover multiple innings for several games. And they are coupling this with better offensive production, signing Hoskins to provide as many winnable games as they got from Burnes in 2023.   

By signing Sanchez, the Brewers have prepared to trade Willy Adames. Whether that happens this week or at the trade deadline, the Brewers likely feel they have the players to replace his production. The addition of Joey Ortiz in the Burnes trade gives them a major-league-ready shortstop with a defensive skill set that is ranked very highly. 

Offensively, Gary Sanchez (.482 slugging and .780 OPS in 2023) is a slight upgrade over Willy Adames (.407 slugging and .717 OPS in 2023). Sanchez will likely not reach Adames’ 638 plate appearances as the DH and backup catcher. But with even 500 plate appearances and playing most of his games in Milwaukee, Sanchez should eclipse Adames’ 24 home runs on the season. 

This doesn’t mean that Willy Adames will be traded, but signing Sanchez preemptively fills a potential hole in the lineup if Adames is traded.

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[JohnBriggs12]

If they don't trade Adames, is moving him to 3B a possibility they'd explore?  I think they will move him, but if they don't Adames doesn't block Ortiz at 3B and he'd provide a power bat at a corner infield spot that lacks one.  That would give them 3 guys in the lineup most days with 25+ HR power.

[sveumrules]

2 hours ago, JohnBriggs12 said:

If they don't trade Adames, is moving him to 3B a possibility they'd explore?  I think they will move him, but if they don't Adames doesn't block Ortiz at 3B and he'd provide a power bat at a corner infield spot that lacks one.  That would give them 3 guys in the lineup most days with 25+ HR power.

I don't see Adames agreeing to move off of SS - where he has posted +17 DRS (4th) and +25 OAA (2nd) the last two years - on the eve of free agency.

[wallus]

Moving Adames to 3rd makes zero sense, he is still a good defensive SS. 

[SF70]

The team isn’t trading Adames, unless they get a return that crushes his contract year performance/pick/pool money/leadership ability, and that’s unlikely to happen.

[eddiemathews]

Basically an accurate post. Another aspect to their signings is that none of them are slam dunks; any or several of them could fail. The redundency protects against that.

One thing that hurts the Brewers is the limit of carrying just 13 pitchers. If they could carry 14, they could limit several starters to one time through the line-up, or one and a half. Using the minors could help that, too...but MLB also limited that option by doing away with the 10 day time limit, moving it to 15 last season. But they'll use it as much as they can. They really don't have any starters that you can count on going five plus innings. That may be the biggest problem this season. They'll have to send guys down for two weeks just to recover.

[Trax]

Spot on article.  Hopefully the team can recover enough for Adames before the season starts to move him now.

 

If not, it will be revisited throughout the season and heat up in July if he isn't gone by then.  Far better IF we can move him now.  No fire sale though.